Michael Goring Speaks on Hosay

Pages: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08

Staff Article
Interview Recorded: May 25, 2005
Posted: June 27, 2005

The drums are saying something

Michael Goring

I know the Hosay from pulling bag. We take a bag and we strip it, and we get twine. When you start to tie it up they would take bran and mix the bran into oil cake and put it on the joint and it will get hard so it doesn't move. It comes like now with the hammer and nails and wood. You strip bamboo and you make the shape that you want and you paper it like how you do a Papier Mâché, and you do all the joints and you leave it overnight and it gets hard like concrete. Then you have to make the material, which the elders will cut out. Then you have a stick, and you make the decorations. They are not using the decorations now. They buy a piece of cloth and they put it on and that's it. It defeats the purpose. It is not easy for me to be working whole day, come home and take a bath and go down to the Mumbara and stay until twelve or one o'clock every night, and I have to go to work tomorrow again, and we are doing that until it is completed. You do not get sustenance by food, because any food that you are eating is boil food and you are eating just to survive. It teaches you discipline.

Now, when the two Brothers meet and they embrace each other, the correct word for that is "Salami". I would like to see Hosay the way it is supposed to be. Presently, the drummers are thinking about recording music instead of coming out every night and beating. If and when they do that, they are going the way of the DJ. You are taking away everything that you have in your lessons and letting it go down the wayside. Why is that? Is it that we are not prepared to sacrifice for the things that our forefathers gave us?

Let me explain to you what I have been getting at. Have you been privileged to see the procession? The Panchaite is built on Mathura Street. When I was there we were building on Mathura Street. If you come up Carlton Avenue and come up Lazarie Street, you stand at the corner and you wait until the rest of them start coming out, because they have to go in that corner for twelve o'clock. So you leave Mathura Street, come up Carlton Avenue, come up Lazarie Street and wait at the junction to go back into Romeo Street junction. Since I am out of it they don't do that anymore. They come up Mathura Street and come back on the same Lazarie Street junction. So what you are doing is you are going through the back door. You do not go through the back door with church, because you are the leader you are supposed to know better. You take a different road and then you go into the junction and make your turn. But the young people like so much short cut. You cannot have it two ways. You are the only Hosay that has to do the junction. And the reason why that Romeo Street is a junction is that many, many years ago, maybe I wasn't born then, there was a man who used to build a Hosay down in the seaside area. So there is a route; Mathura Street is a route. I understand there was somebody way up in the forest who also used to build a Tadjah.

The reason for the drums walking and stopping is one and the same. You beat a hand of drum (beats), you stand for a while then you move off. You do not travel far, and you then stand again. If you have had the privilege of watching a Hindu funeral, it is the same thing. You carry the coffin; they will stop and they will offer a prayer and then they go again. It isn't a matter of just a straight walk. The drums are saying something. You cannot just take the drums and put it on a cassette. They have to understand what it is all about. Since the government has been giving them money, I am seeing everything is just going down the drain so fast because everybody wants to get the five thousand dollars. Even the Moon is getting three thousand. This year they came here to find out if another Moon can be built. Yes, another Moon can be built, but it cannot come in the street. You can build a black and silver Moon, which is an Amri Moon, but it will have to stay in the yard; it cannot be used on the road.

They are having differences between the Moon Men. Some want to pull weight because they are older. They find that the present owner is too young, but his grandfather gave it to him. By right he got it. They want to build another one. When they were finished talking they came here and I told them, "No, they cannot." It can be built and you can build a hundred, but you can only have two for the processions.

With the Hosay itself, you can have as many as you want. There is only one that is important: the Panchaite. Families can build, as long as they do it the way it is supposed to be done. For instance, a year we had torrential rain, Goolam Hussein came out. They reached here, they turned, and when they reached back home, they went in the yard. They can do that. Only the Tadjah has to take whatever we get and stay out there, we have to make the route. If it is just the people who built it who have to stay with it, they have to go the route. The route is from your yard, Romeo Street junction and Mathura Street. In the day the procession heads to Flood Street. You accompany the Moon Men while they go in to get their prayers and we have to reach back from the junction by the bridge for four o'clock.

Although our license states from ten in the night until four in the morning, very rarely do we come out that time. We come out just before twelve o'clock so that we could make the turn, and if we are off the streets by three o'clock, everybody is happy, because the procession the following day is very long. It is from 10am to 6:30pm, but very rarely we would reach back in the yard before seven o'clock. Cocorite right now is abusing the privilege by reaching home half past nine in the night. Whenever they reach Coronation Street the drinking starts.

Continue...

Pages: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08

Homepage | Steelpan | Carnival | Features